📜 THE NOVI LEDGER CHART #5
Darling, we've followed the Novi numbers from enrollment, to staffing, to per-pupil spending, and then to which spending categories grew after inflation.
Now we arrive at the final receipt in this five-chart series:
What does some of that spending actually represent? 👑🪶
Novi Community School District's FY2024-25 audited General Fund actual expenditures totaled $104,251,802.
Among the major expenditure functions:
Basic Programs: $51,697,777 — $51.70 million
Added Needs: $13,673,472 — $13.67 million
Pupil Services: $8,493,472 — $8.49 million
Instructional Staff Support: $8,282,410 — $8.28 million
School Administration: $5,351,186 — $5.35 million
General Administration: $812,555 — $0.81 million
And there's an important piece of context here.
Basic Programs alone accounted for approximately 49.6% of Novi's total General Fund expenditures.
Chart #4 showed significant inflation-adjusted growth in several support-side categories. But Chart #5 helps us understand why we have to be careful about what those categories mean.
For FY2024-25, Novi reported $8.49 million in Pupil Services and another $8.28 million in Instructional Staff Support.
Those are not the same thing as administration.
The district separately reported $5.35 million for School Administration and $812,555 for General Administration.
And Added Needs, at $13.67 million, was another substantial expenditure.
That's why Lady Budgetdown doesn't take a broad category, slap a convenient label on it, and call the case closed.
The numbers matter.
The categories matter.
And the context matters.
Taken together, these five charts give us a much clearer picture of what has actually happened in Novi over the period we've examined, without declaring that every increase was good, bad, necessary, or unnecessary.
That's a different question.
This ledger was about establishing what the public records actually show.
And the receipts have had their say. 👑
Source: Novi Community School District (63100), FY2024-25 Audited Financial Statements, General Fund Statement of Revenues, Expenditures, and Changes in Fund Balance.
With receipts and respect. 🪶
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